Philippines Books

Some Words Of Advice On How To Find A Friend In This Southern City.

By “Kissy”

You don’t have a lady here? I will give you a few tips on how to find one. This depends on what you are looking for. Do you want a little darling to fall in love with and eventually marry? Or do you want a lady of the night? You will find many lovely ladies that fit in both categories. There are several malls here with ladies just waiting to find you! Take advantage of the mall where you will find aircon to keep you cool. There are shops of all kinds and the prices are great. You will also find several restaurants. It is a great way to spend the day just looking around and relaxing.

There will be many beauties to feast your eyes on and some will follow you around like groupies. Don’t be shy, just smile and you most likely will be approached by a few gorgeous women who will find you very attractive just because you are white. If you are older and fat that is even better. It shows you are mature and must be rich to be able to have so much to eat. You are already a target for marriage, so play all your cards right and you will get there eventually. You have the upper hand since there is only one of you, and many of them. They are everywhere; so don’t stop with just trips to the mall.

These are the nice ladies, so don’t think you can just offer money for a roll in the hay. That can get you in deep trouble, even land you in jail, and perhaps have you deported. I will tell you more on how to find your sweetie in my book, “StreetWise Cagayan De Oro!” due out soon.

If you want a lover only, there are places for that. Just as Ma would say “son wear your rubbers!” You don’t know what disease could be waiting for you in there, so be wise and listen to Ma. Besides, you don’t want to make a baby!

What to do on a lonely Friday night!

There is an area of CDO that is wide-awake all weekend. You will find Live bands, women, several places to eat, loads of fun and more women. It is very well lit up at night and is like an outdoor concert and a huge street party rolled into one. You can eat, shop, relax to great music, and meet a lot of people. There will always be other foreigners there in the crowd. There is tight security with all the cops, so it is a safe place. Just please watch out for pickpockets, they can be anywhere.

This place is “DIVISORIA”, located in the center of the city. Anyone can show you where it is. There are also many restaurants, and shops there, including pharmacies, and Internet cafes. This area is off limits to anything with wheels on the weekend, so have no fear of being hit by a car or even a bike. Just let the kid in you come out and enjoy this fun event!

A Few Thoughts On The Importance Of The Expat Exercise Plan.

I came back from two years of living in the Philippines 12kg (26lb) heavier than when I had left Australia. I was several inches wider and I could hardly tie my shoe laces without panting. I am sure my blood pressure was up there somewhere I didn’t want to go and I know I was in line for the hereditary diabetes since I was knocking back 2 litres of Coke a day, the cola drink not the narcotic.

I was in bad shape and it hadn’t happened overnight. Two years of sedentary living, even when I was working it was pushing a mouse and keyboard around for a living, had gradually pushed me up and over the self set bounds of comfort. I smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day, slept badly and snored like a freight train. Something had to give sooner or later.

After the first week of stuffing my face with real bread, enjoying not sweating, ever, shivering and scraping ice off the windscreen of the car, I got to work on myself. First thing was to get an exercise routine happening so it would become a habit.

Just as not exercising can become a habit, the reverse is true and far better for you. The secret is to take it so easy to begin with you are champing at the bit to get sweaty and really work out. Everything is about pleasure and pain, so associate more pleasure with exercising and more pain with being a couch potato and you have the motivation thing beat!

I use the Royal Canadian Air Force 5BX program, or at least my version of it. 5BX and 10BX were the fitness fads of the sixties at some point although originally developed as an exercise regime for flight crews. My version is you pick five simple exercises and do them five times each as soon as you get out of bed. I did a waist spin, a deep knee bend, a side stretch, an arm swing and a bend over and touch my toes set of five each side. At first it hurt and I could hardly do these five simple exercises!

Gradually, each day got easier but I resisted the temptation to try and rip along to 10BX. The regular, simple, limited exercise started to not only get me in the habit of doing SOMETHING, but it got the blood flowing and stopped the foot cramps and other problems lack of circulation had been causing. Sitting in front of a computer can bring on pain in the feet, cramps in the stomach, all sorts of weird ills and aches all due to not using muscle groups. Use it or lose it!

The next thing I did was quit smoking. I had known that going from fifty cents a pack to ten dollars a pack would be both a shock and a good incentive to quit. In the three and something months since I last smoked, I have not smoked 2300 plus cigarettes! Can you imagine laying out over two thousand cigarettes in front of you and saying, ok, stick each one in your face, set it alight and suck in the carcinogens! So far I have not spent (can’t really say saved as where is the money?) AUD$920 (US$644 or P36,000). Awesome!

How did I do it? Firstly I had nicotine patches (three of them) but I never used them. They can cost as much as the cigarettes and can be just as hard to quit as they are merely a different method of nicotine delivery. I just got my head around it and associated more pleasure with quitting and more pain with staying a smoker. The money factor helped, especially when I rationalised I was here, away from my wife and kids to make money, not set fire to it. Believe me, the mental factor is the major one and unless you really have a handle on your personal motivation for quitting, it ain’t going to happen!

Then I had to look at my diet. That came about after I lost a sedentary job selling cars and got another, more active job working with road repair crews. One of my old martial arts students owns the company and two of the old gang work for him. They found me just when I needed a job and, unknowingly, a change of lifestyle. Funny how these things happen!

I went onto a low carbohydrate diet, cut out sugar, bread, potatoes, rice, noodles etc. Ate lots of meat and fat and suffered for the first two weeks as my body cleansed itself of the toxins and sugar. I was already sleeping better from quitting smoking, but now I slept even better still without the glucose spikes and sugar rushes. Check out the Atkins Diet for yourselves, it may be what you need, it may not. I’m not a nutritionist or a health professional, I’m just telling you what worked for me!

So now I am back in Cebu several kilos lighter, cleansed of my nicotine addiction and feeling so much more active and physically fit than ever before. I am walking everyday, using the wonderful pavement (sidewalk) the Cebu South Road provides, the only decent walking track in the entire province! I am starting to get back into a Boxing Workout (I used to be a professional Boxing Trainer and before that an Inter-Service Heavyweight Boxer in the Army) I drink only Diet Coke or water, have less caffeine each day and each one of those has half the sugar they used to have. Once or twice a week I drink booze and every now and then I eat whatever the heck I want, then get back on track!

Not eating bread is easy here, the same goes for potatoes and the rice I consume is far less than before and always washed for starch after cooking. I eat less each meal and move more and the weight is staying off. More importantly, I have more energy for doing stuff with my kids. So many of us expats marry women half or more our own age and then start a new, young family. We owe it to them and ourselves to be around to enjoy the family and the new lease on life as long as we can. Taking better care of yourself is the first step. It really has made a world of difference for me.

Taking A Look At The Cost Of A Funeral.

Unfortunately Philippines law prevents foreigners from operating funeral parlors and that is a shame as they are a very lucrative business, indeed. I know of one Chinoy (Chinese-Filipino) who owns three funeral homes in Cebu and he makes around P3million a month. Even allowing for overheads and expenses, wages and taxes, he still does extremely well by Filipino standards and not too badly by anybody else’s.

As Benjamin Franklin noted, the only two things in life that are certain and unavoidable are death and taxes. In the Philippines you can actually avoid one, but not the other. The whole business of dying makes money for several people. Of course the hospital has usually pumped thousands out of the relatives in a vain last ditch attempt to sustain life. Some canny relatives though, sensing the inevitable, will hold back that last transfusion, knowing the blood will only leak out onto the bed with the rest of the donations (at P1500 a pop!) so why not keep the money and put it toward the funeral? When you live in such close proximity to the poverty line, you learn to be a little more pragmatic than those better off might have to.

Once the patient becomes the deceased, the funeral home is called and a van sent around to pick up the body. The relatives may accompany the body back to the funeral home in the hearse or mortuary van, if only to save on taxi fares and also to ensure the body doesn’t disappear en route. It happens from time to time, especially around the time medical students are in need of body parts for their studies. You think I’m joking, don’t you?

At the funeral home the bereaved will be asked if the deceased had SSS, social security insurance. If they were employed and lucky enough to have paid in SSS contributions, they will have nearly all of their funeral expenses paid for them. Funeral homes like SSS contributors as clients. They know they will get most of their money, guaranteed. SSS pays the firt P20,000 or so of the bill, which guarantees you aren’t getting out of there for less than about P30,000. Fortunately you can pay the balance three days before the interment of the body.

Depending on what standard of service the relatives have asked and paid for, the funeral parlor will begin to prepare the body.. They clean the body and then make an incision and pump it full of preservative. If you have paid for the good stuff then it behooves you to hang around and make sure you aren’t short changed. Some parlors are notorious for slipping in the cheap stuff. If the body is to lie in state for the full ten days or so, then the cheap stuff will have it turning nasty colors before the coffin lid is closed and the body buried. Not nice.

P35,000 buys a nice casket and all the trimmings, such as the stand, the candle sticks and flower baskets, a lectern for the prayer readers to use and so on. You also get the hearse to deliver the body to the house where it will lie in state for up to ten days, and then take it to the church and graveyard.

You can get cheaper caskets but sometimes they have a tendency to soak up the fluids from the body and quickly rot and fall apart in the tropical heat. I have seen one collapse as the body was carried from the house to the hearse, not very dignified.

The ten days lying in state might get expensive also. You may need to hire a marquee to cover the mourners who will be keeping vigil day and night (just in case the deceased changes their mind). Mahjong will be played, refreshments served numerous times a day and a service will be held every night. Same service. Every night. You will pay for the lay preachers to hold the service and of course the musicians, blind ones are preferred.

The priest will show up on the last day and hold a Mass, and expect to be paid of course. The usual minimum is P1000, but wealthier mourners are expected to pay more. On the way to the cemetary you may recoup some of your expenses as passing motorists will throw three coins in front of you to ward off the evil spirits that may be hanging around the procession. When you get to the cemetery you will have had to buy the plot, usually from the Barangay Captain. You need a cement sarcophagus made and once the coffin is entombed, the local mason will come and seal it up for you.

Then, each year when you visit on All Souls Day (1 November) you can plan that roof to shade everyone from the sun, maybe some seating built in and so on. Before that happens you will have been to the Lapidera and ordered the headstone, maybe another P5000 or more, depending on how fancy you order it to be. Watch for spelling and grammar, I have seen references to “Her Wife” and “His Husband” lying there in eternal rest.

All up even a modest funeral can set you back P50,000, say just under US$1000. Halve that if the deceased had SSS insurance, but still quite a burden for the average Filipino family to shoulder. Yes, if it was legal for me to open one, I’d be into the funeral business like a scalded cat.

Is This The Way To Go For Those With The Cash?

There are over 400 Franchises in the Philippines that the budding entrepeneur can choose from.  Some of these are international brands or franchises known in the USA like McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut and so on. The majority though are home grown and that really isn’t all that surprising.

Firstly Filipino’s love to do things in groups so being a frenchisee means you are one of a group operating the same, identical business as many others.  Comforting to anyone brought up in a culture that promotes the group at the expense of the individual in so many ways.

Yet the individual, or couple, may still want the independence and financial benefits of being one’s own boss and running your own business.  It is a statistic that 95% of franchises succeed whereas
only 5% of new, start up businesses last as long as 5 years.  More than half will collapse within the first twelve months and the main reason is under capitalisation, usually followed by poor location.

The beauty of a franchise is that you are given a model to follow that is working for others and providing you follow the guidelines your business should prosper, too.  All of the expensive trial and error has been finished with a long time ago and by the time someone prepares their business for franchising, you can be fairly sure it will work. When starting abusiness from scratch, nobody plans to fail, but many fail to plan or plan sufficiently and buying a franchise erases a lot of these risks.

A good franchise will have a comprehensive operations manual, pre-selection process and a good marketing plan.  Many franchise agreements have you paying a monthly fee for the adverising and
marketing so make sure the franchisor is doing the right thing by the business in the local media.  On top of that there could be ongoing Royalties that are paid monthly.  Make sure you are getting something in return for these!

There are good franchises and bad ones, same as anything.  The bad ones take your money and give you a badly written operations manual and prety much leave you to get on with it.  The good ones will usually charge more as the franchise is worth more and will earn more) and they will also give you more.  More assistance with location sourcing, staff trianing, ongoing training and supervision, innovative marketing and advertising and lots more.  You will get some thing in return for you fees.

When choosing a franchise you should ask the hard questions, although there is no harm in asking them politely.  Really investigate what you get and what the franchiser will do for you and for how long.  Make sure you fully understand every aspect of the franchise agreement, before you sign and hand over your cash!

Buying a franchise can cost as little as Php27,000  (US$500 approx) (NachoKing Taco cart!) or well into the millions, McDonalds go for around Php15-30 million, which is serious money in any currency.
Anyone looking at investing that kind of money is probably not reading this newsletter, so don’t be surprised if we keep to the under US$30,000 mark when we look at individual businesses and franchises in future issues.

If you want to know more about this great way to get into business, visit www.filfranchisers.com the website of the Association of Filipino Franchisers Inc, or try the RK Franchise Consultancy site at
www.franchise.ph   Here are some other links to franchisers you may want to surf into and check them out:
www.nachoking.com  NachoKing, carts starting at only Php 27,000!

www.figarocoffee.com Figaro Coffee Shops

www.metropole.com.ph Laundry and Dry Cleaners

Philippine Dreams does not endorse any of these specific franchisers but includes them here for information purposes only.

A Simple Solution To An Often Asked Question.

If you are married to a Filipina then the odds are that you will have at least one brother in law, possibly several.  Some of them may be hard working and industrious, some may be loafers and lazier than a dead possum.  At some stage you may be approached to fund his latest business venture and there is merit in helping him develop a business rather than rely on handouts.

What I am about to outline is a simple business I feel has a good chance of success in the Philipines, in both rural and urban areas.  I suggested this business model some years ago on a Yahoo Group I no
longer belong to and it was canned by all the experts.  The majority of them telling me that the product just won’t be bought by Filipinos. Funny how the largest selling single item in supermarket meat freezers today in the Philippines is the very product I had in mind!

That product?  Hot Dogs.  The freezers are chock full of them, numerous brands and row upon row of hot dogs.  I have seen hot dog kiosks spring up in the malls and long lines of people queueing up to buy one of these items so many “ex-pat experts” assured me would never sell here.

Why do I like the Hot Dog business?  Firstly it is cheap and easy to get into.  You need a stand that you can carry around yourself, I envisage two boxes slung off a pole carried over the shoulder.  One box can have the supplies and the other the hot water to cook the dogs in. It can be a straw box, that is insulated with straw to keep the water hot, or it can have a small stove in the bottom for heating the water.

The other box carries the dogs, buns, cheese, sauces and tongs, knapkins etc.  It is a simple business to run.  You buy your hotdogs, buns, cheese and sauces and cost each one out, I figure on P5-7.  You then set a price, I like P10-P20 for plain and add P10 for cheese, sauce is free.  If your box holds 100 hot dogs, then selling out when they cost P5 to buy and sell for P10 means you should have P1000 turnover, or P500 net profit.  If Dong comes back with no more dogs or buns and less than that, he is ripping you off.

He will either be eating them himself, giving them away free to his friends or selling them and pocketing the cash.  Whatever is happening to the cash, this business model allows for early detection of fraud or poor operations and so you can minimise your shrinkage or losses.

A good pitch, as we call a place to stand and sell doggies, should see him sell the whole load of 100 and be heading back in for a resupply. If you clear P500and give him P250 for his efforts, that isn’t a bad days wages for a Filipino.  If your hot dog stand (mobile) cost you P5000 to build and stock, then you can see your investment returned within 20 operating days or so.  Time to make a stack more of them and hire more staff or give Dong his unit and let him keep the whole of the profit.

I would envisage him lasting a week without supervision, someone to ensure the ingredients are freshly bought and the unit kept clean and so on.  It would be far better to maintain the units yourself and hire them out to sellers for a daily rental, say P700 fully stocked with the seller able to earn P300 in just a few short hours if they find the right pitch.

Setting up outside a major school or college takes up a tiny amount of sidewalk and can easily see the load being sold out in an hour or two. If you were to ensure the cleanliness of the sellers and also perhaps fit them out in a simple but clean uniform of logoed t-shirt and cap, use plastic surgical gloves and so on, I am sure the consumer confidence would have them buying repeatedly. 

Of course you can make a more elaborate stand based on a trisikad or even a tricycle, but the object is to keep things simple and costs down. Even if you were clearing only P100-200 per day, yet had ten or more sellers out there, you could easily bring in P30-40,000 a month, a very nice little earner while still giving others a job.

Whenever you look at business opportunities in the Philippines, especially those designed to keep a relative in business, you need to keep certain criteria in mind.  Firstly it should be cheap to set up,
cheap to run and easily monitored to ensure honesty.  You need to be able to supervise yet not get too involved and of course, it needs to make money.  One of the secrets to making money in the Philippines I have found, is to make lots of little amounts from lots of little people, lots of times. 

If you try to make too much too soon and run the business by western standards or expectations, you will soon be pulled back down into the basket with the other crabs!  Give it a whirl, but not in Cebu, ok?  My guys are going to out on the streets in no time!

A Quick Look At A Question Many Ask Before A First Visit.

I am not a Doctor or qualified medically any further than a fairly competent First Aider with a fair amount of trauma management experience courtesy of the Army, scuba diving, sailing and getting
around a bit.  I had a full set of “jabs” as we called them way  back in 1968 before accompanying my father on his posting to Singapore with the Royal Air Force.  When I joined the Australian Regular Army in 1978 I went through the full regime of just about every shot in the book except Yellow Fever and Anthrax.  Later, when I volunteered for active service in Namibia (South West Africa) as part of the UNTAG Force I was given that all important Yellow Fever jab and a few more besides!  Talk about sick!  I’m not sure which jab did the deed (the smart money was on the Cholera jab) but one of them laid me, and everyone else, pretty low for a day or so.  Of course the Army gave us the jabs on a Friday
and before the effects took hold, announced we had the weekend free. Free to roll around  in our beds and groan, vomit and so on!

Since those long ago days I have travelled a fair bit in South East Asia and all over the Philippines and have never needed to show any vaccination certificates or have ever been advised to get any.  I have
a friend who was caught on a bus in India once by a UN WHO team of injector freaks!  Apparently the bus was stopped and two guys with grubby white coats and face masks got on and started  injecting
everyone on the bus with this vaccination gun. Same needle for all of course!  My mate was frantic trying to find his yellow card (international vaccination certificate) to prove he had already been given everything under the sun but the Hepatitis or HIV/AIDS that communal needle was probably spreading!  He came close to smacking the jabbers and bailing out through the back window but finally he was able to convince them not to inject him and his girlfriend.

Horror stories like that are common in India, but to my experience nonexistent here in the Philippines.  I have had Dengue Fever, but you can’t immunise against that anyway.  I am sure Typhus is lurking somewhere in the sewers, awaiting a flood or landslide but since I find little to fascinate me in slum areas, the risks are low.  Smallpox and any other similar disease is fairly well controlled and I doubt you would catch it.  Distemper may be something to worry about, or is that only dogs that catch that?  Be aware of course that Rabies occurs here (Australia is rabies free so we tend to be ignorant of the disease) so watch out for monkey bites and dogs acting strangely.

I would be more concerned about Tetanus from standing on a rusty nail while wearing flip flops than anything else.  Make sure your tetanus shot is up to date, I think they last only 5 years or so.  They are available here very cheaply so don’t panic if you are reading this on the airplane enroute to Manila!

There are courses of vaccinations for various types of Hepatitus, I believe.  I also have been told that you need to take the course long before leaving home, the shots are spread out over several months and if you contract the disease in between the first and last shot you’ve wasted your money.  Please, correct me if I am wrong and feel free to email in more up to date or accurate info!  Hepatitus can be avoided by applying good hygiene habits and watching what and where you eat, but I have been coming to the Philippines since 1988 and lived here constantly for over 2 years and haven’t had any problems bar the odd bout of food poisoning.  Nothing I haven’t suffered back in Sydney, either I might add.

Malaria is always a possibility but a rare one and the prophylactics available are hardly worth the effort in my opinion.  Some require you take them before, during and after the trip and others are daily, some weekly and of course there is no guarantee you won’t catch a new  strain the treatment isn’t effective over!  Cover your arms and legs after dark and use a bug spray!  When it comes to Dengue, that’s a different species of mossie, so spray and cover during the day time, particularly
in the wet season.  I treated the symptoms with paracetemol for the aching back pain and lots of fluids, plenty of rest and an eye kept on my gums in case it turned haemorrhagic.  If you do start bleeding, then go to a hospital as they can at least keep your plasma levels up or whatever they do.

Other than that, I really can’t see how a series of vaccinations will do you any good other than maybe as a placebo to calm your apprehension of journeying into the unknown.  I am open to correction from professionals and those who know more than I do on this subject, in fact I welcome it!  If I am wrong, then please correct me.  If you are not sure then go and get professional advice and take what precautions you are advised to take.  Meanwhile, few things in life are ever fatal!

Adventures Of An American Woman Married To A Filipino

I take great pleasure in introducing “Kissy”, an American woman, writer, author of three childrens’ books and soon to complete the StreetWise Cagayan De Oro! Expat’s Guide, to readers of Philippine
Dreams.  “Kissy” tells it how she sees it and doesn’t pull her  punches, exactly what we need when it comes to gathering useful information about this country.  Perry Gamsby Editor/Publisher

Don’t kid yourself that life is any different for me than it is for a man. I am the foreigner.  I am from America.  Being both of course makes me rich.  My mother in law thinks I have a money tree, as does my hubby’s brothers and sisters.  They don’t seem to get it that I had to sell everything I had and take what little I had in the bank just to move here.  In the three years I have been here, I have had to leave every year to go back to the States just to earn enough to buy another ticket, and bring back more money to live on and fix up this little house we call our home.

This latest time I have been back since the middle of March, and have dished out over US$1000.  Not that I mind spending the money, I love my Filipino husband and he is so good to me.  I feel like he is my wife sometimes because he insists that I just relax and let him do the cooking and cleaning.  Hot coffee always awaits me in the morning, and a fantastic massage every night.  He has spoiled me, and life would be very bleak without him.  This is a far different relationship than I ever had with an American guy.  Oh, I know American men say the same about American women, so I think we should just realize that there are many who just can’t have a good relationship with their own race.  I say to each their own.  Be happy for life is too short.

My first year here I thought I could save the world.  Feed all the hungry children, and tend to all the sick with my nursing experience. What dreams I had!   

My second year I realized I was no savior, and just relaxed and had a lot of fun. We traveled, went to beaches and the mountains.  My hubby had a great job, and we could afford to do a lot of fun things together.  I am not a drinker, but one night I decided to have a small cup of beer.  With a microphone and a karaoke player, and very big speakers I kept all the neighbors awake until the wee hours of the morning. The next night several neighbors showed up at our door wanting to have a party with the kano who loved to have so much fun.  I haven’t had alcohol since.

No, I have to say I did drink one more time.  My birthday is November 1st.  Hubby took me on a trip to Manila by ferry.  We had a stateroom there and back, and there was a Halloween party on the night of my birthday.  I was one of the three chosen to judge the crews costumes. I had a beer, and had so much fun.  Of course I sang, Happy Birthday to myself.  I have never had fun like that in America.  Filipinos know how to have a great time, and being at sea was a special treat.  I would love to live on a ship!  To me there is nothing as peaceful or beautiful than being at sea, the fresh sea breeze; and smelling the wonderful salt scented air, while watching the lapping of the water.  I am truly at home with the sea, and to know it is so close to me now is heaven.  I can look outside and see both the sea and the mountains. I love it here in CDO.  This is the most beautiful place on earth to me. I would never consider moving to another country.  I have friends here, and Filipinos make great friends, and I have my precious hubby who is my best friend.

There is another side to life here. It isn’t all a beautiful picture. There is always a dark side to everything. There is no positive without a negative.

MY 3rd Year
This is when the negative side set in.  Always before I could look beyond the poverty, the filth and the corrupt government.  Not anymore. My eyes are wide open, and I not only see the poverty, I live in it.
My husband lost his job just before I went back to the states last December.  His company was losing money so they cut many jobs. I wasn’t worried then.  He has an excellent work record, a BA Degree in Computer Engineering, and fantastic references.  I figured he would soon get another job.  How wrong I was.  With all the applications he has submitted he is still without a job. Either at age 35 he is too old, or too over qualified, that is always the answer he gets.  Now he just repairs computers for people who don’t want to pay over 300php at most, and even those repairs are only perhaps 2 or 3 a month.  We started a little sari sari here at home.  I put US$500.00 into it and lost everything. Oh the barred window and shelves are still there, but no stock.  Now there is no fun.  No trips and barely any food.  Even rice can be a luxury.

I wish I had read Perry’s idea about bed spacers before I wasted the money.  We have an extra room and live close to a teaching hospital. There is always a jeepney passing by.  If I had known about this bed spacer idea I wouldn’t be broke now, and living like a very poor Filipina holding an empty rice
bowl.

See this is real experience speaking.  You have no idea just how much you can lose here, but with the benefit of hindsight gleaned from Newsletters like this, you can prevent losing everything you have.

UPDATE APRIL 2008:  Kissy wrote this in September of 2004.  Within a few months her life had turned around dramatically.  She was ill, starving and destitute.  She never submitted the manuscript for the CDO Guide and as far as I know she was repatriated back to the USA by the US Consul.  The Philippines can be a harsh mistress for any of us. Always have your ticket home and cash to survive the journey and resettlement and don’t hang on to a drowning horse too long!  Know when to change in mid-stream.  I had to do it in May 2004 and return to Australia for four months and work just to feed the family. I copped a lot of flak from tiny minds over that, being called a failure and so on but who cares?  Don;t be afraid to retreat and regroup if the dream turns nightmare-ish!  Perry.

Some Of The Reasons We Live Here.

NOTE: I wrote this in September 2004.  It was how I felt at the time. I still believe what I felt then was true. What do you think?  Feel free to email me directly at perrygamsby@yahoo.com or post a comment to this blog using the link included below.  Perry April 2008.

You could be forgiven in thinking that this country is a nightmare, badly run and full of people just waiting to rob you of every penny you have. Not true. The Philippines is the Philippines, simple as that.

This is a great country with many wonderful people and customs, its just very different from the USA, Canada, Australia,New Zealand, UK,and Europe. Very different. If it was identical then there would be no reason to come here, would there?

There are so many good things to living here, not just having your retirement or vacation dollar stretching farther. There is still a freedom to do as you wish that is being legislated out of all existence back home. I believe many well intentioned pieces of legislation have been amended well out of their original context and now add to the problems they were implemented to correct.

The Philippines is still growing and developing, finding its place in the modern world, eager to advance yet proud of her history and hero’s. Justly proud, I feel.

There is corruption, incompetence and ignorance in every aspect of life, but it is tempered with an approach to life and living that is simple and refreshing. It is a fact of life here so accept it and focus
on your own problems, don’t try and save the world or at least the Philippines from theirs.

As a foreigner you have the luxury of being able to leave any time you choose and go virtually anywhere you wish. Not so the Filipino. So if they seem unaware of the “failings” of their country, who can blame them? If your own country didn’t have failings then you wouldn’t be reading this now.

Living here is a humbling experience and  for me, an empowering one. It builds your self confidence and self respect, it makes you appreciate the simple things in life we have taken for granted for too long.  You will only get out of a trip here what you are willing to put in.

Keep your mind open to new ways of doing things. Just because it is done a certain way back home does not mean it is right for the Philippines or Filipinos. Far better than I can say it, the words of
Lord Curzon, Viscount of India, express the love I have for this country and its people, while often wondering why they do it the way they do!

‘We must remember that the ways of Orientals are not our ways, nor their  thoughts our thoughts.  Often when we think them backward and stupid, they think us meddlesome and absurd.  The loom of time moves slowly with them, and they care not for high pressure and the roaring of the wheels.  Our
system may be good for us; but it is neither equally, nor altogether good,  for them.  Satan found it better to reign in hell than serve in heaven; and the normal Asiatic would sooner be misgoverned by Asiatics than well governed by Europeans.’

Powerful words as true today about the Philippines as they were about India over a hundred years ago.  Manual Quezon himself said he would prefer a “Philippines” run like hell by Filipino’s than run like heaven by foreigners.  Cynics might argue he got his wish but at least their destiny is in their own hands, more or less.

I may be among the first to rail against the almost feudal system prevailing here but there is so much good to balance against the bad. Having spent three  months now away from my Cebu home and back amongst my own countrymen, I must admit I see things differently.  My time in the Philippines mellowed me in many ways, it changed my perspectives and altered what was once considered important to a status less imperative.

I look at my countrymen, striving to live the great “Aussie Dream” of owning their own home, having two cars in the driveway and sending the kids off to university. The reality is that the homes are getting bigger while the land they stand upon is shrinking.  Everyone wants MacMansions yet the cost of land is too high to leave any room for a garden for the kids to play in.  But then kids don’t play outside anymore, its all Nintendo and computers and cable tv and who has the time in their busy lives to keep a garden in shape?

As for the cars, the government slugs you coming and going with taxes and duties and fees and fines and yet you still need to have the latest model and lots of space.  By the time your kids get to university they will probably hold little regard for you other than contempt given the media, their peers and society as a whole.  You owe them everything for bringing them into this world and the world owes them the rest. That’s not how it is in the Philippines.

I want my wife to visit Australia and see my country.  Hopefully hang around just long enough to get over the WOW! Factor and pick up on the reality, then be happy to return to the Philippines.  I have little to no faith my retirement superannuation dollars will be around when I reach the age the government have decreed I can touch them.  Instead I will look to having as many rental properties in the Philippines to live off as I can acquire between now and then.  In other words, like the Filipino, I will be looking after Number One, and the immediate family.  Charity does start at home, and my home is in the Philippines.

Sometimes You Need To Lie Low!

There is even more up to date information on this often never mentioned topic in the new eBook ‘The Philippines Survival Handbook’, OUT NOW!

Some time in your life you may find yourself in need of emergency accommodation, a  place to hide shall we say.  Why you need such a place is irrelevant, all that is important is that you need somewhere to go and you are in a foreign city, what do you do?

Luckily you bought this guide!  You have several options, depending upon who you are hiding from and how much money you have.  If you are on the run from the authorities then you need more money to stay hid. Don’t despair, criminals do it all the time so it can’t be that hard.

First of all avoid anywhere where you have to show ID to register, so keep this in mind if paying with a credit card. Better choice is to use the card to withdraw cash from an ATM and pay cash for your lodging. Even better is if you can stay where you don’t need to pay at all, like with a friend.  Make sure they are a good friend in case there is more incentive for them to turn you in than keep you hidden.

In Cebu you will stand out from the crowd because of who you are.  You can use this and hide in a crowd at a major hotel, be one of many foreign faces.  But you will be recognised by someone and it might be the first place anyone would look for you.  I would stay well away from 5-star hotels.

Right down the other end of the scale you stand out just as much if not more so and you can’t trust the people you’ll meet not to shop you for a few peso’s.  I would get a taxi to help me pick up a hooker, then book in to the Queensland Motel, Amihan Motel or Jade Court/ Princes Court Motels and simply fade into the anonymity of rent by the hour short time sex hotels.  You need the hooker for cover, otherwise you will stand out and the first cop who calls in and asks about strange guests will be shown your door.

Another option is to stay away from hotels altogether. Plenty of all night bars around the place, or at least stay open very late. If you end up on the streets at 2am then it is four hours until dawn, head for
Pier 4 or the Airport.  People hanging around there attract much less notice.  A great, secret place to hang out if you need to stay free is St Francis Funeral Home on Cebu South Road, near the South Bus
Terminal.  There are grieving people there all night, every night and even as a foreigner it will be presumed you are related to one of the deceased. Just hang around in the shadows and look sad, this one works!  You can nip over to the bus terminal in the morning and get out of town.

Depending on when you find yourself needing to stay free, you can grab a bus to Manila or just over to Bacolod on Negros. Ceres Liners go via Tabuelan a few times a day and the Manila bus will keep you out of harms way for days.  At least on the bus you have somewhere fairly secure to crash and kill time.

Another excellent option is to take an overnight ferry anywhere you like, then come back whenever you prefer.  This is one of the great things about this country, you can move around pretty freely and there are so many options it is difficult to keep track.  You can take a ferry to Leyte then come back on the night boat and sleep in your cabin from 6 or 7pm (departure is at midnight) and wake up at 5am to find you are back in Cebu.  Clever application of the timetables can save you an arm and a leg in hotel costs, whether you are on the run or just getting from A to B!

There are many small resorts on Mactan and just north or south of the city where you could hide up and nobody would find you for some time, unless they were conducting a very thorough search.  The lovely thing about Cebu is that the climate is so mild that unless it is pouring with rain, you could sleep out under the stars every night and need little other than a mosquito net.  There are plenty of places to curl up and hide in and live a little rough for a while.  You will stand out but keep moving and nobody will bother you.

Surviving Her Moods, One Kano’s Way To Deal With Tampo.

Anyone who has spent any time at all with  Filipinas will know about Tampo. Sulking.  The silent treatment.  Filipina’s have it down to an art form that their western sisters may have once boasted, but have since lost the skill as their masculine side came more to the fore! Tampo is so terminally female, so illogical in its logic, yet so cruelly effective most of the time.  There are ways to defend against it, even fight back but none are as powerful as Tampo itself! Read on.

Tampo is an accepted mode of behaviour within the Filipino culture.  It allows for the offended party to display their hurt and offense without offending anyone else, including whoever offended them in the first place.  Clever, don’t you think?  Coming from a society where it is quite acceptable for someone to run “Amok” and kill as many as they can before being brought down themselves, Tampo is a far less lethal, yet just as effective way of getting your message across.  And nobody dies.
Yes, women do the tampo, men run amok, you didn’t think it would be the other way around did you?

So the gentler sex has this weapon at her disposal that can cut a man dead as quickly as a strike from a Bolo.  Not literally, but figuratively.  When you are on the receiving end of tampo, you know it!
She will not talk to you, harsh punishment from a woman of any nationality as women place more store in communication and conversation than men do.  For a Filipina, a person brought up in a culture that places the group above the individual and getting along with everyone in that group more important than personal advancement, not speaking to you is really playing hard ball.

For us foreigner men we might actually enjoy the silence, the hours or days free from nagging or shrew like remarks but this will be short lived.  She will tune in and realise that we are actually enjoying the peace and quiet and so she will up the intensity a little.  Some physical contact and cold shouldering will come into play.  Doors will be subtley slammed, plates crashed down on the table in front of us and other signals will be sent to show that we are being punished and that we should not enjoy the process!

Repeated attempts to get her to explain why she isn’t talking to you will be met with silence.  After all, she isn’t talking to you, remember?  If she did give you an answer it wouldn’t make sense to  your
logic restricted male brain. Nor would it necessarily be anything more than a representation of her emotional state, devoid of any tangible connection to anything you have ever said or done, but perhaps things you may have intended, thought or could one day perhaps, maybe, might, possibly do.  Like I said, forget logic, reason and trying to make any sense of the situation.  Simply accept you did worng, you are being punished and you have a duty to make ammends.

This will entail paying lots of attention to her over considerable periods of time.  No matter how much she ignores you, keep at it. It may take days or it may be only hours but slowly she will allow you to
do little things for her and she may even speak directly, albeit abruptly, to you.  Gradually she will soften further and tehn before you know it she will be the warm, loving asawa of old and you had
better warm up and forget the cold time and be ready to go on as if nothing happened!  If, like me, you find it difficult to be sexually aroused after a few hours of tampo, then don’t be surprised if she
goes right back into full blown tampo because you don’t love her anymore! You should be girding your loins as the ice melts and be ready to perform, studlike, as a show, proof shall we say of your love, devotion, fidelity, etc etc.

Remember, to a Filipina there is no shame in showing tampo, or being in tampo.  In fact the others in the family or barkada will have respect for her because she has a problem and she is dealing with it the right way and without embarrassing herself or anyone else by yelling and screaming. Like what us foreigners usually do!

Does it work the other way?  Can a foreinger husband tampo the wife? I guess you can but I realy can’t see it having the desired effect.  It really is a female thing but I really don’t agree with the men’s
way of showing their displeasure, beating up the wife.  The alternative is to grab the Bolo and “run amok!”.  I’ll try hiding in my den for an hour or two!